Miles Fielder

Mike Mignola gets back to the drawing board with Abe Sapien, Hellboy and BPRD

24 Jun 2010

Miles Fielder chats to writer and artist Mike Mignola about the expanding world of his demonic offspring and literally getting back to the drawing board

Howard Chaykin - American Flagg!

28 May 2009

With a penchant for eroticism and violence, US comics visionary Howard Chaykin is releasing another groundbreaking work. Miles Fielder chats to him.

You've Been Trumped - Anthony Baxter interview

Director of Donald Trump doc on being shunned by Scottish film bodies

22 Sep 2011

‘I live in Montrose and it’s 40 miles south of the Menie Estate, where Donald Trump was planning to build his golf course resort. I read the newspapers every day and I was surprised that the coverage was so one-sided. The other side of the story, as I…

Alan Moore - Lost Girls

5 Feb 2009

‘What we wanted to do with Lost Girls was to come up with a different form of pornography. We realised we had the ideas for something enormous and wonderful.’ Alan Moore, who’s widely considered to be the finest writer working in comics today and is…

The Innkeepers

A genuinely involving and disconcerting chiller that thankfully eschews any trendy post-modernism

11 May 2012

Having established his credentials as a serious genre fan with a spot-on homage to 80s horror movies in The House of the Devil, writer-director Ti West reaches even further back into the past with this slow-burning thriller. Like all good haunted house…

Anne Boleyn

Howard Brenton's iconoclastic historical drama is a hands-down crowd-pleaser

9 May 2012

You can see why the original Globe theatre production of Anne Boleyn sold out, and why Howard Brenton’s iconoclastic re-imagining of Henry VIII’s second wife was subsequently sent on a tour of the UK: the show is a hands down, no-arguments…

Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti)

Enjoyable gay rom-com-cum-family soap by Turkish/Italian filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek

14 Dec 2010

(12A) 112min This gay rom-com-cum-family soap by Turkish/Italian filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek is as enjoyable as his winning 1996 debut, Hamam (The Turkish Bath). And over the 14 years since that international success introduced a bright new talent to…

The Children

27 Nov 2008

HORROR The current fad for evil kiddie chillers – see Ils (Them) from France, Eden Lake from the UK and While She Was Out from the US – continues with another British horror flick in which children do diabolical things to disbelieving adults. As the…

Mark Haddon - The Red House

The Curious Incident author delivers a mature domestic drama for grown-ups

24 Apr 2012

(Jonathan Cape) Prolific author of children’s books and part-time writer of novels for adults, Mark Haddon’s latest is his most mature work to date. It’s mature in terms of both content and style, and reading The Red House there’s a sense that this…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

You’ve Been Trumped

Controversial doc on Donald Trump's Scottish golf course plan a triumph

22 Sep 2011

(12) 95min Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand for the past few years, you’ll no doubt be aware of American tycoon Donald Trump’s controversial plans to build a golf course and hotel complex in an area of outstanding natural beauty and…

Frances Ruffelle: Beneath the Dress

Cheeky, sexy and surprising cabaret-esque show

23 Aug 2010

Given Ruffelle’s showbiz background – she’s the daughter of London theatre school founder Sylvia Young and a Tony Award-winning star of West End and Broadway musicals such as Les Misérables and Chicago – it’s unsurprising that her cabaret-esque Fringe…

Lovelace: A Rock Musical

Respectful tribute to the Deep Throat porn star

10 Aug 2010

This rock opera goes a long way to rescuing its subject, Linda Boreman, from the ignominy of being forever associated with her screen persona, Linda Lovelace, and the 1972 porn film Deep Throat. The film made history for being the first to become a…

Morecambe

Show-stopping comic tribute

10 Aug 2009

This funny-sad account of the life and death of the man who was dubbed Britain’s ‘comedian of the century’ is already a big hit with Fringe crowds. It’s fair to assume that the prospect of seeing the late, great Eric Morecambe brought back to life on…

In control

Samantha Morton

16 Aug 2007

Samantha Morton is in control. The critically lauded, hard working and in-demand British actress plays the long suffering wife of troubled singer of legendary Manchester band Joy Division in the Ian Curtis movie, Control. Fresh from winning the Best…

Lambchop - Mr M

Reassembled band present lovely low-key set recalling Sinatra, Bacharach and crooners

23 Jan 2012

(City Slang) Having taken a break from the long-lasting alt.country outfit (to collaborate with singer Cortney Tidwell on 2010’s KORT project), Lambchop founder and frontman Kurt Wagner has reassembled the Nashville-based band to make its 11th…

F

British ‘hoody horror’ thriller in which a group of teachers defend themselves from schoolkids

12 Jan 2011

(18) 78min F is the latest in a line of peculiarly British ‘hoody horror’ films that also include Eden Lake and Heartless. English writer/director Johannes Roberts’ effort is the best yet thanks to his smart script, crisp direction and a fine…

Donkeys

6 Oct 2010

(15) 76min The second film to come out of the three-part Scottish-Danish co-production project The Advance Party is a very different beast from the first. By contrast to Andrea Arnold’s disturbing thriller Red Road, Donkeys is a black comedy also set…

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Inspired take on the Dahl classic

16 Oct 2009

Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s much loved book is no straightforward children’s film. Wee ones might enjoy it to a degree, but they won’t get much of the typically arch humour and wanton eccentricities the filmmaker once again…

The Avengers - Series 1 & 2

11 Sep 2009

(PG) 1520min (Optimum DVD retail) What joy! Every surviving episode from all six series of the marvelous cult British television show The Avengers, originally broadcast between 1961 and 1969, are to be released on DVD over the course of the next…

Dock Life - The Leith Festival

28 May 2009

So what’s The Leith Festival, then? It’s an annual community celebration that takes in comedy, dance, film, literature, music, storytelling theatre, visual art and children’s events – in other words everything. A small affair, is it? Hardly. Its…

Emily Blunt - Yo majesty!

5 Mar 2009

When people got an eyeful of Emily Blunt’s striking good looks and acting ability in My Summer of Love, winner of the Best New British Feature award following its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2004, the general consensus…

Charles Burns - Fear(s) of the Dark

16 Oct 2008

The wildly imaginative and scary animated French portmanteau horror movie Fear(s) of the Dark was made by six European and American cartoonists working with professional animators. The most notable of those cartoonists is Charles Burns, who is a legend…

Tilda Swinton

2 Oct 2008

It says an awful lot about the rise and rise of Tilda Swinton that, during the course of the teaser trailer to one of her forthcoming films (the Coen brothers crime comedy Burn After Reading) three legends are flashed up on the screen: ‘CLOONEY’…

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

The devil plays guitar

13 Nov 2006

Tearing modesty a new asshole, Tenacious D describe themselves as ‘the world’s greatest rock band’. The D’s two members, Jack Black (vocals and rhythm guitar) and Kyle Gass (lead guitar and backing vocals), name check among their inspirations Kiss, Dio…

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

Compendium of the Dutch cartoonist’s satirical alternative comics

3 Feb 2012

Apparently so. Or almost so. Is That All There Is? collects virtually all of the Dutch cartoonist’s alternative comics from way back in 1972 to the present day, translates them into English and assembles them, under Swarte’s own supervision, in this…

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Area 52

Orchestral backing and lots of special guests leads to a fun if over-wrought latin-funk-rock record

6 Jan 2012

(Rubyworks) For their fifth studio album the Mexican acoustic rock duo have teamed up with 13-piece orchestra C.U.B.A. to rework nine previous compositions. The radically increased personnel (which is also augmented by several guests including Cuban…

Life and Debt

Heartbreaking and pertinent documentary about Jamaica's economic misfortunes

22 Sep 2011

Made the year after the launch of the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel third world debt at the beginning of the new millennium, Stephanie Black’s agitprop documentary looks at the case of Jamaica. In 1977, fifteen years after achieving independence from…

Jenny Erpenbeck set for 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

Revisiting Germany’s troubled past

9 Aug 2011

‘An extraordinarily strong book by a major German author, ingeniously translated, produced with love by an idealistic publisher intent on doing something about the shamefully small proportion of foreign literature whose existence our country…

Captain America: The First Avenger

Despite a clumsy second half, the Cap sets the stage well for 2012's Avengers

4 Aug 2011

(12A) 124 min Captain America might be subtitled The First Avenger, but he is, in fact, the last of the Marvel Comics superheroes to receive blockbuster movie treatment before he assembles alongside Hulk, Iron Man and Thor in next year’s superhero…

In Our Name director Brian Welsh - profile

Film charts female soldier returning home from Iraq to Newcastle

17 Feb 2011

Name? Brian Welsh. Born? Falkirk, 10 August 1981. Background? Having left school with what he describes as ‘pitiful formal qualifications’, Welsh worked variously as a waiter, bartender and gas man while developing ideas for films. His…

Beautiful Burnout - knockout collaboration a success on all fronts

Raging bulls come to the Fringe

8 Aug 2010

The new play about aspiring young boxers by Bryony Lavery (author of last year’s Kursk and Tony award nominee for Frozen) is a heavy-hitter in more ways than one. It’s a co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and Frantic Assembly that…

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Chicago fusion of jazz, hip hop and funk

8 Aug 2010

This nine-piece comprising eight horns and a drummer are not what you might expect at the Jazz & Blues Festival.

The look of love: Pedro Almodóvar interview

We preview the Spanish filmmaker's Broken Embraces

20 Aug 2009

Pedro Almodóvar, the most famous Spanish filmmaker since his Aragónian idol Luis Buñuel, and one of the most acclaimed auteurs in international cinema, once described his relationship to his chosen medium of expression thus: ‘Cinema has become my life.

The Red Shoes

30 Jul 2009

Martin Scorsese proclaimed Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s masterpiece ‘truly the most beautiful Technicolor film ever made.’ Marty should know, given he oversaw the restoration of the 1948 classic through his Film Foundation and then premiered…

Christine Jeffs interview

25 Jun 2009

Kiwi filmmaker Christine Jeffs (pictured centre right) wasn’t the obvious choice to direct the American indie comedy Sunshine Cleaning. Her previous two features, the New Zealand marital breakdown drama Rain and the British dead poet biopic Sylvia…

Chuck Palahniuk: Pygmy

28 May 2009

Having tackled the taboo subject of porn in his last book Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk’s tenth novel sees the controversy-courting author moving onto another no-no topic with this wickedly witty tale of terrorism in the American heartland. A terrorist attack…

Guy Delisle - Burma Chronicles

30 Apr 2009

TRAVELOGUE COMIC French-Canadian animator and cartoonist Guy Delisle previously documented his experiences in far-flung inaccessible countries with Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China and Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. His third graphic travel…

The Antichrist

19 Mar 2009

HORROR The Italians wasted no time ripping off the enormous success of The Exorcist, knocking out this dreadful demonic possession horror less than a year after Linda Blair blew green chunks all over Max von Sydow back in 1974. The Antichrist (aka…

Sex Drive

8 Jan 2009

COMEDY Determined not to start college a virgin, semi-nerdy teenager Ian (Josh Zuckerman, best known as Young Dr Evil in the Austin Powers sequel Goldmember) drives across country to bed a red-hot babe he met on the internet named Ms Tasty. Fuelled…

Simon Callow - A Festival Dickens

A rich performance of moving, entertaining tales

21 Aug 2008

Having taken his celebrated one-man show The Mystery of Charles Dickens around the world, British thesp Simon Callow is no stranger to the Victorian writer and philanthropist. Here, Callow performs his second solo Dickens show under the sure-handed…

Death Defying Acts

7 Aug 2008

ROMANCE/THRILLER (12A) 97min Freely mixing historical fact with fictionalised biography, this Brit-Aussie co-production turns on a fascinating premise: a battle of wits and wills between world-famous escapist and sceptic of all things supernatural…

Surviving Spike

The tortured genius behind the inspired comic lunacy

31 Jul 2008

Surviving Spike promises to reveal the ‘tormented character that hid behind the public facade’. Audiences could be forgiven for assuming the blurb refers to the show’s star, Michael Barrymore, whose career was all but destroyed by revelations of the…

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

14 Feb 2008

HORROR (18) 90min Here’s a welcome example of that all too rare thing in American horror movies: a teen slasher that’s actually very good. The simple answer to that conundrum is that appearances can be deceptive: Mandy Lane isn’t simply a teen slasher…

Andrew Dominik - Contrary cowboy

29 Nov 2007

It’s taken New Zealand-born, Australia-bred filmmaker Andrew Dominik (pictured) seven years to make the follow-up to his much-praised debut, Chopper. Like that film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a wildly unconventional…

Profile - Rigoberto Castaneda

29 Nov 2007

Name Rigoberto Castaneda Born 27 February 1973, Mexico City Background Castaneda was working as a runner in a production house in Mexico City when he was given a book about Alfred Hitchcock and was inspired to take a course in filmmaking. Having…

Shortbus - interview

Real sex in the city

21 Nov 2006

New York City rom-com Shortbus is John Cameron Mitchell’s (writer, director and star of the stage musical and subsequent Sundance Film Festival favourite Hedwig and the Angry Inch) new film. It might sound a rather conventional follow-up to his riotous…

Free Men

A Prophet's Tahar Rahim stars in worthy but flawed WWII espionage drama

11 May 2012

Loosely based on real events, this espionage drama set during World War II focuses on the largely overlooked cooperation between Arabic immigrants and the French Resistance. Tahar Rahim (who shot to fame in A Prophet) plays a North African worker named…

Nicolas de Crécy - The Celestial Bibendum

Gorgeous reprint and translation of artist/writer de Crécy’s often bizarre comic

27 Apr 2012

Knockabout, the UK publisher/distributor that’s been making Transatlantic underground and alternative comics available to the turned on and tuned in since the 1980s, has more recently been in the business of translating and repackaging into oversize…

Le Havre

Aki Kaurismaki's French language debut is a grimly funny working class drama

19 Mar 2012

(PG) 93min Migrating south to shoot his latest feature in France seems to have lightened the mood of the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki, whose brand of deadpan humour has previously proved to be the key in crafting a series of delightfully…